


the last of us

by indoorbird



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Mafia AU, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24711940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indoorbird/pseuds/indoorbird
Summary: Neither of them was the child they remembered or frankly the sibling they'd want to be left with. But for their mission now, they were perfectly suited. How funny, if her life had gone as planned, Sansa never would have known how well she and her half-brother could coordinate under fire or plan to bomb Lannister factories.Sansa and Jon are the last of the Stark crime family.
Relationships: Jon Snow & Sansa Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	the last of us

Sansa had always fit into the archetype of a mob daughter. She was happy to have her father’s money buy her purses and Tiffany necklaces and a lavish Sweet Sixteen, but she remained willfully ignorant of where that money came from. Organized crime is one of the last strongholds of primogeniture. Sons are raised to inherit their father’s business. Daughters are raised to smile for their fathers, date other mob boys, and keep their hands clean.

Sansa used to be one of those girls. To be fair, Ned Stark never acted like a mobster. He was a quiet man who would patiently listen to her ramblings about princesses while brushing her hair. He also held to an honor code that others in the game had forsaken long ago. Many said he just didn’t have the heart for the job, that wild, dead Brandon was the one meant for it. She liked to think that faith in her father’s inherent goodness justified her ignorance a little bit. But it was hard to ignore your father’s head blown to bits in front of you.

Perhaps the worst part was that she’d been alone for it all. Sansa remembered every detail of that day. Her father was staying in their city apartment to work over the weekend. He had taken Arya and Sansa with him. Sansa had come to shop and maybe meet up with her college friend Margaery. Arya was squeezing in a last-minute training session. She was already being recruited by colleges for field hockey and was constantly squeezing in workouts.

She and her dad had gone out to get bagels while Arya was running in the park. They’d turned on to their block, and a black SUV had just driven by and started shooting, right there on the city street. Their bodyguard, Jory, had jumped to cover Sansa. Both he and her father had died quickly. Random pedestrians had pulled Jory’s heavy corpse off of sobbing Sansa.

In the ambulance, she made her first call to her steady boyfriend, Joffrey Baratheon. Why Sansa called him before her mother or brother, she will never understand. But he came to pick her up at the hospital, so quickly as if he’d been waiting for her, and her hell had begun. Well, really it had begun a year before when Joffrey asked her out. All along, he’d seen her as a pawn. She’d been his prisoner long before she could see the bars.

Sansa was glad Arya hadn’t been there. She might have been a hostage alongside Sansa or worse, killed alongside their father. Yet Sansa missed her sister like she never thought she would. It was something Sansa and Jon have in common. She never thought she’d share so much with her half-brother but now they had the same grief and anger to make up their past differences.

Jon doesn’t talk much. He hardly did before, but now there’s something different. Ever since he’d been shot by his own partner and basically resurrected from the dead, there was a graveness in him. It reminded her of their father which might be why it didn’t bother her so much.

Jon was getting a reputation. He’d always been an asterisk on the Stark family story. His poor mother had tried to get out of the life when she got knocked up, but cancer took her a few years later and Jon went to next of kin. Jon had been raised by Sansa’s father as his own, equally loved but always apart from the other Starks.

Like Uncle Benjen, he was the rogue gone straight, joining the army out of high school and becoming a cop after that. She knew her father once had vague ideas of finding a place for him in his ranks, but Jon would always be just another body man, not an heir like Robb. It was a shame. Jon was the best shot she knew, and he never hesitated to finish a job. He could have a friendly conversation with a mark and shoot them in the next minute. That kind of deliberateness was something Robb always lacked. He had a head for plans and stratagem, but he hesitated on the trigger. Jon shot first and then shot again to make sure the mark was dead. His tag was a point-blank bullet to the heart, something he always did with a cool hand and empty face.

Sansa had come to Jon on his death bed, but then miracle of miracles, he woke up. Neither of them was the child they remembered or frankly the sibling they'd want to be left with. But for their mission now, they were perfectly suited. How funny, if her life had gone as planned, she never would have known how well she and her half-brother could coordinate under fire or plan to bomb Lannister factories. They each had their scars and the tics and paranoia hard-wired into them, the ways they transformed to survive their crucibles. Some days they were more like strangers than siblings. But they watch each others' backs. She changed Jon's bandages and he stitched her wounds. Then once in great while, Jon repeats a phrase that was there in Winterfell, in the gold, and she thinks if someone tries to kill this last piece of Stark, Sansa will stand in front of him like he would for her.

Jon was the hand, and Sansa was the head. For too long Sansa had lived in the family but not the family business. When she was held as Joffrey’s pet, she utilized a talent for remembering names and understanding relationships previously used for socialite domination. Whenever someone came to the Baratheon tower, she remembered their name, their face, and how they fit into the muddled network of allies and employees of their varied legitimate and illegitimate businesses.

One piece she never quite understood was Tyrion. He was a skilled lawyer, and she didn’t get why someone who could easily make a living on his own continued to associate with the family who hated him. When they killed Robb and her mother, Sansa became a worthless hostage. After Margaery Tyrell came along, the Lannisters decide to break off Joff’s and her’s engagement as well. Tyrion was the one who offhandedly mentioned he needed a new secretary and this way he could keep an eye on her.

It was remarkable how much they trusted her. Or underestimated her, she should say. Of course, she was constantly monitored, but she got to be in a real office instead of locked in her rooms all day. Tyrion and his employees treated her like a real person. Shae, one of his paralegals, would ask her to go shopping and get pastries on their lunch break. She was secretly dating Tyrion so she would complain about his various meetings and dinner guests. Sansa still felt guilty that she had stolen Shae's wallet when she escaped.

That cash aside, perhaps the most important connection she’d made though was Pod, the bumbling intern and the only Lannister contact she kept active. Pod was more perceptive than he let on and like her, could utilize his seeming ineptitude to collect sensitive information. He was responsible for the meeting she was currently in.

“Thank you for meeting me here, Brienne,” Sansa said politely, “Thank you for understanding my desire for discretion.” They were in a busy diner, and Jon was in the booth behind her, sitting back to back in his disguise.

“Of course, Sansa,” she said, “I’m so relieved to see you’re alright.”

“More or less,” she said, and then she replaced her politeness with her mother’s ice, “Brienne. Why weren’t you there when they murdered my mother?”

She looked ashamed, but Sansa stared her down, “I wish I’d gone down with her. She sent me away to look for you and Arya. I was following a lead on your sister, and I was way underground. I didn’t even hear the news until later. I’m so sorry, Sansa.”

Sansa had heard her mother had not made the wisest choices after her father’s death. It was tough to swallow nevertheless, “So did you find anything?”

Brienne gave her a small smile and reached into her messenger bag. She pulled out a thin file, “Not much. I don’t know how a young girl on her own managed to disappear so effectively. But I have a theory.”

Sansa opened the file and immediately reached for the corner of a photograph. It was a blurry screenshot from a video of someone in a hoodie looking over their shoulder. Sansa desperately tried to see her sister in the image. It was hard to even tell whether she was looking at a boy or girl. But in the shape of the eyes, the curve of their mouth, she thought it could be Arya.

Sansa further perused the pile of photos, documents, and newspaper clippings. There was her sister’s missing person flier, police records of the search, and interviews with her friends and her coach. Then there was other stuff which made no mention of Arya- a newspaper article about an unsolved shooting, police records of the crime scene, a dark photo of a dog tied to a post.

“I think your sister has been trying to get revenge on Lannister and Baratheon men,” Brienne explained, “One of Walder Frey’s sons went missing a few months ago and his body was found in the Trident.”

“That’s where they dumped Mom,” Sansa said quietly.

“She recently started leaving a tag, of a wolf, naturally,” Brienne said, “She’s been very careful up until then not to leave anything. I cannot even be sure anything before the wolves is her. But she’s choosey with her marks- an accountant very high up with the Lannisters, a few low-level guys from the Mountain’s gang, a crooked cop. I’m trying to track her by tracking people she would have reason to hate. There’s a piece of information going around that Ilyn Payne was the one who shot your father.”

“Pod’s uncle,” she said, “Yes, it was him. Joffrey told me.” She hated that man. He never spoke a word, and somehow that was more terrifying than anything Joffrey or the others ever said.

“Pod has no love for his uncle, and he feels for your sister so he’s keeping an eye out. Ilyn usually works mostly with the Kingslayer now. If your sister goes after him, she will be, pardon my expression, entering the lions’ den.”

“Jaime Lannister is not what he used to be,” Sansa said as she read through the autopsy reports. The victims were usually shot, sometimes from a distance. There were a few stabbed. One report mentioned a possible sample of the killer’s blood with no DNA matches to anyone in the system. How did Arya possibly get so good at killing?

“These show the hand of an experienced killer,” Sansa said. Arya was athletic, but she was still a sixteen year old girl. Sansa couldn’t imagine the girl who played peewee soccer with a bobbing ponytail as an _assassin_. The closest she’d come to ever shooting someone was summer camp archery. She used to play rough, but she was soft-hearted too. She’d made the whole family hold a funeral for her goldfish, “I just can’t see how she would become so skilled at murder in just a few years.”

Jon coughed behind her. He knew Arya in some ways better than she did. She was eager to hear what he would think.

“Thank you, Brienne,” Sansa said, “May I take this file?”

“Of course,” Brienne said, “I’ll keep sending you updates.”

“Thank you. It’s good to know there are still people who know the meaning of loyalty in this world.”

Brienne left, and Sansa walked out to the car. A few minutes later, Jon slid into the passenger’s seat. She handed him the file and began to back out of the parking spot.

After he had silently read the file, he said, “I gave Arya a gun before I left for basic.”

Sansa couldn’t believe her ears. “She was fucking _fourteen_ , Jon.”

“Dad took me shooting when I was even younger,” he said in the distant tone he used to talk about the past, “She wanted to learn, and he refused to teach her. So I did. I would take her to the range and let her practice with mine. When I left, I got her a tiny little pistol, just in case. I had a bad feeling she might need it.”

“I can’t believe I lived with her for two years not knowing she had a gun.”

“The oldest report in here is about a young Lannister foot soldier getting shot in the stomach only a few days after Dad. It came from my gun, I’m sure of it.”

“They were searching for her then,” Sansa said, remembering Cersei getting more and more impatient with Sansa for all her guesses of where Arya went being wrong, “I guess he found her.”

“I’m glad I gave it to her then,” he said, “Sansa, she had perfect aim. I would move the mark further and further away from her, but it made no difference. It hurt my pride, but I thought she would be better than me if she kept at it. When I left, I told her to keep practicing.”

“I can’t believe she could do all this killing though. She could be so _sensitive_.”

“But she was angry too. I saw it in her because it was in me too. She didn’t just get mad at bullies, she _hated_ them. So when someone actually hurt her, I can see how she’d be able to hurt them back. Gods know what I would have done if I hadn’t been on another continent,” Jon said, “The crooked cop she killed was from my precinct. He was one of my partner’s cronies. This is her. I’m sure of it.”

“We need to reach her.”

“Do you think she knows what we’re doing? Is there a way we can signal to her without revealing ourselves to anyone else?” Jon asked.

“Maybe the time has passed for discretion,” Sansa said.

“What are you saying?”

“I think we should come out of the shadows.”

“The Lannisters are weakened, but we’re still surrounded by enemies, Sansa.”

“We have allies too. We know our enemies. You and me have done more in the past few months to weaken them than, God rest his soul, Robb could do with an army of gangsters.”

“But what-“

“What’s the point of any of this if not to get Arya, Bran, and Rickon back, to make a world where they never have to hide?” Sansa said, “I’m done with small gains. I want Winterfell.”

Jon sighed, “It’s going to be a firefight from the start.”

Jon was deliberate, but he wasn’t bold unless necessary. She didn’t like making him do anything he didn’t want to after all he’d been through, but that doesn’t mean she won’t.

She took her hand off the steering wheel and reached for his, “I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t know if I can. But I will try.”

He sighed once more, “We’re in this together."


End file.
